Rob cannot believe that the state is shutting the Frederick Douglass Charter School in Roslindale - or that the media didn't give the school's side of the story. He says the school is in good financial shape and its test scores are in line with other inner-city schools:

Not one news organization has bothered to print the school's side of the story. And I should point out that zero public schools have been closed down for poor test scores or for financial mismanagement. Funny how that works, huh?

Jay discusses "the rookie," the new kid at work whom he keeps winding up next to in the men's room:

This guy is wicked proud of himself everytime he steps up to the urinal; you know, look-ma-no-hands, shoulders back, hair blowing in the wind. ... He stands like 6 inches outside of the urinal guards.

Come on! Step up to the plate! Get in the batter's box! At least one hand on the bat at all times!!!

Cynthia proves riding the T isn't all drudgery and sardine-can packing:

Yesterday I was in the Harvard subway station slightly after 4pm and a woman offered me tea. High tea, I suppose. She had a table set up and tea and cookies laid out out and she was wearing a taffeta gown and hat and affecting a British accent. ...

The National Hockey League officially cancelled its 2004-05 season today.

(Does anyone care anymore?)

Should Patricia White call off her latest bid for a seat on the city council because she's pregnant?

Aaron sternly lectures her on her responsibilities as a mother:

... She is being a poor role model by continuing to run for an office concurrent to her pregnancy, and potentially serving that position while being a new mother. ...

Plus, he seems to find the idea of lactation rooms in public buildings icky.

Beth 1 wrote yesterday why the Ford F-150 is the vehicle of evil. Beth 2 agrees:

It's amazing to me how many incidents, in the very short time since I started driving again, I have had with Ford trucks. I've been bullied, cut off, or otherwise treated meanly, and it's almost always by owners of that particular vehicle. It's weird.

Carpundit, though, attempts to show how the Beths are wrong in singling out the F-150:

... The F-150 has been the single best-selling vehicle in America for more than 20 years. They're only giving you their proportionate share of trouble. ...

To which I feel compelled to add: Sorry, but Toyota Camrys and Ford Tauruses are also very popular vehicles, but when's the last time you got cut off by one?

Chris, of Philocrites fame, reports:

An announcement for Philocritics in the Boston area: I will be preaching this Sunday at the Eliot Church in Natick, Massachusetts, at the invitation of my friend (and UU blogger) Adam Tierney-Eliot. The congregation is a community church affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association; the service starts at 10.

Adam can't understand why Verizon makes it so hard for him to consolidate all his phone bills into one:

... Last night, I called Verizon Wireless Customer Support, asking them why it’s taken three months to do this. They told me I had to call Verizon Wireless One Bill. Verizon Wireless One Bill told me that Verizon Wireless Customer Support didn’t know what they were talking about, and I had to call Verizon Residential One Bill, but they were closed. Now, why can’t Verizon Wireless Customer Support just call Verizon Wireless One Bill or Verizon Wireless Residential One Bill for me and take care of it? In fact, I bet they even have interoffice email, so perhaps they could do it that way. ...

We go live now to East Boston, where Marilora is already on the scene:

I arrived home from work this evening to find a car burning in front of my house. The whole street was out taking part in Eastie's official pastime--disaster watching. Witnesses told your intrepid blogger that the gentleman in the car noticed his car smoking and pulled over to the curb as the car burst into flames. Just before I arrived one of the tires exploded from the heat. ...

Mark Cuban writes:

Whether it’s been newspapers, magazines, TV or radio, the opportunities to reach an audience has been limited to a finite number of local and national gatekeepers. Just outside those gates, knocking on the door, trying to be heard for the past 100 or more years have been wanna be Woodward and Bernsteins. People with information, ideas and concepts that they know the populace would respond to have been turned away, again and again.

Its payback time . The bloggers are here, and they are ready to knock down the gates and get their pound of flesh. The traditional media has no idea what is about to hit them.

Jason loves his Dodge pickup, but concludes it's time to trade it in for a vehicle that gets better mileage, like, oh, a car.

Beth concludes the Ford F150 is the vehicle of evil, after some jerk in one nearly kills her in the equally evil Lowell Connector this morning.

Chris, meanwhile, is forced to write a breakup letter to his overly clingy Saturn dealership - and beg it to stop stalking him:

... I think it is time that I start seeing other dealers. To be honest, taking my picture while getting into my car for the first time was a bit weird and I felt as if you were coming on too strong. To make matters worse, when I was in getting my oil changed one day, I noticed a picture of me in this big binder with other new car owners. How long have you been selling other cars to people behind my back? ...

Kathleen has a very nice boss.

Jeff Jarvis says, etch this in brass:

Welcome to the new world of journalism, where every witness to news can report the news, thanks to the internet; where every citizen can question the powerful, thanks to the internet; where every speaker can be a pundit, thanks to the internet. Journalism is no longer the closed society of the gatekeepers. Journalism can no longer just lecture; now it must listen. News is freed from the limitations of paper and schedules and reporters' pens. Journalists should welcome the help, for journalists should believe that more information yields a more informed society and that is our goal.

Angela is a waitress who had to work V-Day night. The morning after, she is not happy:

To every customer I waited on tonight who eventually stiffed me, I hope you all cannot maintain an erection tonight when trying to satsify your girlfriends/wives/mistresses. I have never before worked so hard for so little. You jerks sent me running back and forth to the kitchen for ridiculous things. You made me refill your drinks countless times. You left a mess of epic proportions for me to clean up and all I get in return is a 13% tip? ...

A new report says that within 50 to 100 years, global warming will mean repeated, expensive flooding of the Back Bay, Cambridge and other waterfront areas as sea levels rise and storms grow more intense:

An EPA-commissioned study details the wrenching impacts that global warming will have on Greater Boston. Most strikingly, the study shows predicted sea level rise caused by global warming flooding swaths of Downtown Boston with waters reaching all the way to the Back Bay and Harvard Square in a severe storm.

Charley on the MTA says it's a call to action:

... 94 billion cost for global warming, just in Greater Boston. When will skeptical business types wake up, and realize that if it's bad for everyone, it's bad for business, too?

Message to Mitt, Reilly, Galvin, Patrick, all you would-be govs: you've got to make this a major issue, and take it national. Get in the media's face about this, in a real and persistent way. It's way past time. ...

John, though, isn't buying it:

... Sure, we should be concerned about global warming and realistic about our vulnerabilities to mother nature's extremes, but this five-years-in-the-making report is a non-story. They can't get a seven day forecast right, and this is a ninety-five year forecast.

Tanaise is walking through the courtyard of the BPL in Copley Square when she sees a heart somebody had made in the snow:

This is found art--I walked by it, stopped and said, "That was a heart, wasn't it." I love the perfection of the heart, and the starkness of the light.

See it today before it melts.

Eric and family try Cafe Apollonia, the Boston area's only Albanian restaurant (146 Belgrade Ave., in Roslindale). He recommends it:

... Our best expectations were confirmed, and we are delighted to say that the Hysi family operates a wonderful little place. Francesco, they have byrek! The menu looks traditional, but chef Marlon Hysi makes them with the innovation you might expect of a Cordon Bleu graduate, which he is. Ivana's Trofte Tave was baked in wine and tomatoes over carmelised onions, Azra's Qebaptore were excellent čevapi, but served over a bed of seared eggplant and peppers, with a thick yoghurt sauce and rosemary mixed in with the meat. ...

What? There's some other celebration today? Not for Girl, who posts a photo of her captain, oh captain (of the Sox, that is):

I am celebrating the workout that is stretching your Man-Thighs!  I am celebrating the cerebral force that you are behind the plate!  I am celebrating your honesty and integrity!  I am celebrating the fact that you have grown back your facial hair!  I am celebrating your seriousness in the clubhouse!  I am celebrating your communication skills!  I am celebrating the fact that you move better now than you did when you were 21!  Limber and flexible!  Big but fast!  Bending and squatting and trotting to the mound! ...

Steven marvels at the state GOP's decision to use the Rovian "flip-flopper" strategy against Tom Reilly because a) Bush lost Massachusetts, so people might not take kindly to it and b) it could boomerang against their man. As he points out, the Mittster, who now wants to ban stem cell research, said something a wee bit different in 2002:

I am in favor of stem cell research. I will work and fight for stem cell research.

Charley on the MTA relays a report from Mrs. Charley, who tried to board a Red Line train in Central Square this morning:

[H]uge, angry crowds of people; waits of much longer than an hour; fights nearly breaking out; trains stuffed full, moving slowly; dozens of trains going outbound, while only three or four were going inbound over the course of more than an hour.

This is pathetic. The blizzard was weeks ago, and it's been like this way too much lately. It costs individuals and businesses too much to put up with this. We deserve better. Call your reps: If they can fix potholes, they should weigh in on this.

Bad Transit has more Red Line near-riot reports here, here and here.